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Afterthoughts

Now that I have recounted the story about my experience of the race in the previous post I think it's a good idea to look back on the lessons learned from this new experience. I fully understand now that the longer the race the more magnified the small things are. The main thing I come away with is staying on top hydration and diet. I started the race holding myself accountable of how many gels I would consume per hour and water intake, but as the day wore on that seemed to be less of the case. I'm not sure if I was just taking it for granted or because I lost track but lesson #1 is: stay on top of hydration/dietary/electrolytes. It can make a world of difference in how one feels mentally and physically. Lesson #2: I need to start taking care of my body a bit more in terms of gaining and maintaining strength and flexibility. Going out running is great but doing some strength and flexibility is going to be very important in maintaining longevity. It will also indirectly help with running performance. This last point is not so much a lesson than observation: experiencing new things is a key principle to living. As much as I was nervous about running the distance I was very curious and interested on how I would react beyond my zone of comfort. New experiences enrich life and allows the opportunity to observe things in a different light because sometimes I find myself feeling quite stagnant in terms of fresh new thoughts or perspective.

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Staying on top of electrolytes is key, as running while you think you're going to puke (or actually puking) kind of sucks. (Although it makes you sound pretty badass when you tell people you ran all day, got so sick you puked, then ran X many more miles.) However, I really think the best solution is 'training specificity,' meaning, you basically just have to go and out and practice running for a really long time if you want to be good at running for a really long time.

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